synchronized swimming

After riding to work yesterday morning, soaking in the hot shower and then getting dressed, I decided my watch needed synchronization to the atomic clock in Greenwich, England. That was the first tick mark complete on my mental 'to do' list. It feels great to get off to a successful beginning on a beautiful Monday. Of course it IS Monday so there's a long road laid out before us...paddle paddle.

We're in the mirror of Autumn here in N. Nevada. Less the changing colors off the Fall and the everything else (temperature, smells of burning detritus, daylight hours, etc.) seems a perfectly reflected image. Along with the other myriad of happenings the water has started to flow through the canals along the roads and fields. This brings out two things: swimming ducks and fields being prepped for planting. Not all the ducks leave over the winter; maybe they do and other more northern ducks show up from the likes of Idaho and Manitoba, who knows. I'll miss the ducks. Sometimes the flock just sits there in the middle of the side road that I ride home everyday - not much traffic, no real worries. I foresee my much more urban, traffic-laden ride in my future and I'll miss the absolute crazy selection of animals I see everyday:

sheep
tons of horses
goats with stairs and ramps
peacocks
llamas and alpacas
osterich
ducks
one flock of geese
lots of cattle,
plus, all the dogs: the Stooges, Trey (the three-legged dog), Midge, Mop, Anthony and Jester, Shadow, Jackpot, Stan and Oliver, the Sandlot (too many in that lot to name!), Casper and his pal Casper II, the ever relaxed Ghost, and Bullet the Wonder Dog

(all names have been created to protect the innocent)

I made shitake mushroom and black olive risotto for dinner Sunday night. Risotto gives one a lot time to think while standing and massaging the doings in the pan. Dinner and (inner) conversation! I'm a perfect date.

My weekly recommendations include the new Kris Kristofferson CD; Good Night, and Good Luck; the New Yorker article on just how off topic those clunky frames in art galleries appear to be. At the National Gallery last month Christine commented on that problem...everyone steals all her grand ideas.

T

court of wits

Delinquency has abounded over the last few weeks, at least blog-wise. Maybe not delinquency perse, but laziness? a lack of typing abilities? the sunny days of Spring? a reasonable person? Not sure which story'll fly so I try them all. While working evenings a few nights last week (manning so much as 'working') I ended up reading (and rereading) the Supreme Court's decision in Georgia v Randolph. How this has come to pass is perfectly understandable when one considers the lethal combination of open debate, logical pursuit, and a squatter of my mind posing herself under the rubric of girlfriend. This opinion appears the first difficult decision of the Roberts Court; not merely the softballs of 8-0 or 7-1 decisions. I sense the justices were just standing around smacking tire irons into palms, begging for a chance to lay into the other end of the bench: philistines. When I read an opinion, dissenting or otherwise, that uses 'red herring' to describe the other's position I know it's on...'til the break of dawn. My seperately issued concurrence is this; I don't suspect anyone standing next to me, physically NEXT to me, can invalidate my individual rights. Seems simple enough, right? I did later see Shepherd Smith attempting to ask indepth questions concerning the ruling from an equally inept expert on CNN the next day...geniuses.

I'm booked into Omaha the week before Easter to hang around with a very cute almost ten-year old. Planning on a fancy dress dinner out on either Friday or Saturday evening. I'd say it's because she wants to get dressed up but it's more my inkling to get kitted out for a nice evening at V. Mertz in the Old Market. Does V. Mertz have hotdogs? I might need to call ahead.

I was off school this past week for Spring Break. I packed up the car and spent a week in South Padre Island picking up chicks. When you tell them you go to Western Nevada Community College (Go 'Cats!) it's like magic.

On my way out of the store this afternoon I overheard a woman scream the following at her young child as she got into the family car, "Why are you barfing all over yourself?" I'm not sure if it's a dumb question or merely a question that has no answer. Let the voters decide...

The retirement paperwork appears in order. I start the new job on June 5th.

Love to all,

t

play date

I've finalized my work come 1 June 2006. Unless I win the lottery I'll be at work on Monday, 5 June at a company in Vienna, VA. All that work stuff is rather boring discussion beyond the fact that I really enjoy the folks that work there, the office is nice, the work is what I've done for years, and I'm happy to finally move on to something else.

I sat the redeye into Dulles last Friday night and arrived well before the rest of the country was awake: 5:00AM (!) arrival in the Nation's Capital amidst the night cleaners who hadn't yet finished their work. Picked up my bags and headed east to Arlington and a short week of vacation.

What happened? Well, there was plenty of cooking: a zucchini pasta I'd been dying to try, a Sunday roast with a fantastic bread pudding for dessert, some drooling gnocchi, lovely crepes (that I quickly learned from Christine), stuffed french toast, lots of fruit, lots of veg, many variations of coffee (instant, press, cappi'), a mistaken lunch at Starbucks (not the lunch...the Starbucks), and some serious devouring of leftovers. Endless trundles through the kitchen make life worth living, it's the gravity of life. Sunday's roast was particularly enthralling as it reached apogee during Corey's impression of Johnny Depp channeling James Brown while character-acting during Pirates of the Carribbean. You had to be there; type can't do it justice. I think Kt was horribly embarrassed, and rightly so, but who are we to judge? Between Corey and I (manly competition?) there will be endless piles of food to eat throughout the week, particularly on weekends. Wander by if you need a nibble. (p.s. he's a much better cook...)

On Monday we metro'd to D.C. and caught the Cezanne and Frans van Mieris the Elder exhibits at the National Gallery. X and I (as Roman numerals we'll be know as Eleven...) agreed that Cezanne is on and off with his arty stuff. I particularly enjoyed his watercolors but the endless scribbles of the house in the south of France were a little boring. Anyone who knows me would bet that van Mieris would make me giddy (hmm, a 17th century Dutch painter? what?...) and about half his stuff was quite impressive; all so detailed and such lovely play on light. You'll be hard-pressed to undo my Dutch thing.

Christine was assigned the task of observing Federal Court over Spring break (along with the writing of a brief and applying for Moot Court) so we decided it would be easy enough to stroll down Alexandria-way for a day with the Federal District Court for Eastern Virginia. As we soon discovered, the place was locked down since Moussaoui is being tried on the 7th floor (can't get in there! see a definition of festival seating). We headed up to the 9th floor for five hours of the first case dealing with all the False Claims against the U.S. Government that ballooned in late 2003 after the war in Iraq ended. The company in the brig was Custer Battles LLC who had 'allegedly' (read: raped) overbilled the U.S. Government and the Coalition Provisional Authority for something like $20 million. These guys (Custer and Battles) are the worst kind of people...absolute whores. What I learned was how the system functions (I've always been suspicious), and had the realization of just how horribly you have to eff up before the bell finally tolls for your soul. I can't swear, but now I suspect, that you've got to be pure evil to find yourself before Judge Ellis III in Federal District Court. By default, if you don't find yourself there then it's a good bet you aren't what they claim. These two guys (Custer and Battles) were former Army Rangers who popped up in Iraq, winked the Army conversation line, flashed Academy rings...and promptly took CPA money that could have been used to buy bulletproof vests, armored vehicles, helmets, and anything else that could protect soldiers; soldiers that may have been their company mates, brigade friends, or battalion leaders. They were asses...to say the least, and I was quite happy to watch them burn. There's a whole other entry on their 'defense' attorney's closing argument; that'll come soon. This 'attorney' was the worst (within a my experienced group of one) representative for a client that I could imagine. As off the road as it seems, the Eleven will forever laugh about just how inept the defense attorney was...horrible; it's a verb now, "you've been Douglass'd!" As the wonderful New Yorker so concisely put forth; That dog won't run. This just in: Custer Battles was found guilty of fraud against the U.S. Government and sentenced to pay $10 million against the initial $3 million dollar contract. Justice served...

Podcasting as usual. Jay Farrar is on Paste's Culture Club and I'm loving the music.

I've got a house for sale...anyone looking?

love to all

T